From this reticent report, any careful reader could see that for some reason, not so distinctly given as would have been the case if the wind alone were at fault, the action had been very badly fought on the American side. The British official account confirmed the impression given by Perry. Barclay’s story was as well told as his action was well fought:—
“At a quarter before twelve I commenced the action by a few long guns; about a quarter-past, the American commodore, also supported by two schooners, ... came to close action with the ‘Detroit.’ The other brig [the ‘Niagara’] of the enemy, apparently destined to engage the ‘Queen Charlotte,’ kept so far to windward as to render the ‘Queen Charlotte’s’ twenty-four pounder carronades useless, while she was, with the ‘Lady Prevost,’ exposed to the heavy and destructive fire of the ‘Caledonia’ and four other schooners, armed with heavy and long guns.... The action continued with great fury until half-past two, when I perceived my opponent [the ‘Lawrence’] drop astern, and a boat passing from him to the ‘Niagara,’ which vessel was at this time perfectly fresh. The American commodore, seeing that as yet the day was against him, ... made a noble and, alas! too successful an effort to regain it; for he bore up, and supported by his small vessels, passed within pistol-shot and took a raking position on our bow.... The weather-gage gave the enemy a prodigious advantage, as it enabled them not only to choose their position, but their distance also, which they [the ‘Caledonia,’ ‘Niagara,’ and the gunboats] did in such a manner as to prevent the carronades of the ‘Queen Charlotte’ and ‘Lady Prevost’ from having much effect, while their long ones did great execution, particularly against the ‘Queen Charlotte.’”
Barclay’s report, agreeing with Perry’s, made it clear that while Perry and the head of the American line fought at close quarters, the “Caledonia,” “Niagara,” and the four gunboats supporting them preferred fighting at long range,—not because they wanted wind, but because the “Caledonia” and gunboats were armed with long thirty-two and twenty-four pounders, while the British vessels opposed to them had only one or two long twelve-pounders. Certainly the advantage in this respect on the side of the American brig and gunboats was enormous; but these tactics threw the “Niagara,” which had not the same excuse, out of the battle, leaving her, from twelve o’clock till half-past two, firing only two twelve-pound guns, while her heavy armament was useless, and might as well have been left ashore. Worse than this, the persistence of the “Caledonia,” “Niagara,” and their gunboats in keeping, beyond range of their enemies’ carronades nearly lost the battle, by allowing the British to concentrate on the “Lawrence” all their heavy guns, and in the end compelling the “Lawrence” to strike. On all these points no reasonable doubt could exist. The two reports were the only official sources of information on which an opinion as to the merits of the action could properly be founded. No other account, contemporaneous and authoritative, threw light on the subject, except a letter by Lieutenant Yarnall, second in command to Perry on the “Lawrence,” written September 15, and published in the Ohio newspapers about September 29,—in which Yarnall said that if Elliott had brought his ship into action when the signal was given, the battle would have ended in much less time, and with less loss to the “Lawrence.” This statement agreed with the tenor of the two official reports.
Furious as the battle was, a more furious dispute raged over it when in the year 1834 the friends of Perry and of Elliott wrangled over the action. With their dispute history need not concern itself. The official reports left no reasonable doubt that Perry’s plan of battle was correct; that want of wind was not the reason it failed; but that the “Niagara” was badly managed by Elliott, and that the victory, when actually forfeited by this mismanagement, was saved by the personal energy of Perry, who, abandoning his own ship, brought the “Niagara” through the enemy’s line, and regained the advantage of her heavy battery. The luck which attended Perry’s career on the Lake saved him from injury, when every other officer on the two opposing flagships and four-fifths of his crew were killed or wounded, and enabled him to perform a feat almost without parallel in naval warfare, giving him a well-won immortality by means of the disaster unnecessarily incurred. No process of argument or ingenuity of seamanship could deprive Perry of the fame justly given him by the public, or detract from the splendor of his reputation as the hero of the war. More than any other battle of the time, the victory on Lake Erie was won by the courage and obstinacy of a single man.
Between two opponents such as Perry and Barclay, no one doubted that the ships were fought to their utmost. Of the “Lawrence” not much was left; ship, officers, and crew were shot to pieces. Such carnage was not known on the ocean, for even the cockpit where the sick and wounded lay, being above water, was riddled by shot, and the wounded were wounded again on the surgeon’s board. Of one hundred and three effectives on the “Lawrence,” twenty-two were killed and sixty-one wounded. The brig herself when she struck was a wreck, unmanageable, her starboard bulwarks beaten in, guns dismounted, and rigging cut to pieces. The British ships were in hardly better condition. The long guns of the gunboats had raked them with destructive effect. Barclay was desperately wounded; Finnis was killed; Barclay’s first lieutenant was mortally wounded; not one commander or second in command could keep the deck; the squadron had forty-one men killed and ninety-four wounded, or nearly one man in three; the “Detroit” and “Queen Charlotte” were unmanageable and fell foul; the “Lady Prevost” was crippled, and drifted out of the fight. Perry could console himself with the thought that if his ship had struck her flag, she had at least struck to brave men.
CHAPTER VI.
General Harrison, waiting at Seneca on the Sandusky River, received, September 12, Perry’s famous despatch of September 10: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” The navy having done its work, the army was next to act.
The force under Harrison’s command was ample for the required purpose, although it contained fewer regular troops than Armstrong had intended. The seven regular regiments assigned to Harrison fell short in numbers of the most moderate expectations. Instead of providing seven thousand rank-and-file, the recruiting service ended in producing rather more than twenty-five hundred.[122] Divided into two brigades under Brigadier-Generals McArthur and Lewis Cass, with a light corps under Lieutenant-Colonel Ball of the Light Dragoons, they formed only one wing of Harrison’s army.
To supply his main force, Harrison had still to depend on Kentucky; and once more that State made a great effort. Governor Shelby took the field in person, leading three thousand volunteers,[123] organized in eleven regiments, five brigades, and two divisions. Besides the militia, who volunteered for this special purpose, Harrison obtained the services of another Kentucky corps, which had already proved its efficiency.
One of Armstrong’s happiest acts, at the beginning of his service as War Secretary,[124] was to accept the aid of Richard M. Johnson in organizing for frontier defence a mounted regiment of a thousand men, armed with muskets or rifles, tomahawks, and knives.[125] Johnson and his regiment took the field about June 1, and from that time anxiety on account of Indians ceased. The regiment patrolled the district from Fort Wayne to the river Raisin, and whether in marching or fighting proved to be the most efficient corps in the Western country. Harrison obtained the assistance of Johnson’s regiment for the movement into Canada, and thereby increased the efficiency of his army beyond the proportion of Johnson’s numbers.